Without protection, data stored on storage devices (e.g., hard disks, tapes, non-volatile memories, and other storage devices) is accessible to anyone with access to the storage devices. In particular, data accessible by way of a computer network, such as network storage, is especially vulnerable to unauthorized access, modification or deletion.
To protect the stored data, the stored data may be encrypted. In general, encryption transforms the stored data using an algorithm to make the stored data on a storage device unreadable to anyone except those possessing particular cryptographic information used to encrypt the data. With such cryptographic information, the stored data may also be decrypted to make the stored data readable.
Currently, such cryptographic information is temporarily stored in a cache until retrieved for use in a cryptographic operation. To locate such cryptographic information in the cache, a hash function is applied to cryptographic information that is encrypted. This hash is then used as an address into the cache where such cryptographic information is stored. The application of the hash function is time consuming, complicated, and slows down the overall process of encrypting and decrypting data because a hash function needs to be applied for every lookup of such cryptographic information, which can occur frequently.